Illustrations

Adding illustrations to your documents and presentations can increase their visual appeal, help communicate important information, as well as add a touch of whimsy. When selecting illustrations, you will have to decide whether they will be more decorative or informational; more whimsical or serious; or whether they will use different or consistent artistic styles.

Utilizing purely decorative illustrations - which is to say illustrations whose only purpose is to provide decoration - can be a challenge if you don't consider yourself a graphic designer.

For example, including an abstract artistic illustration in the style of Pablo Picasso as the cover page of your document, or in the title slide of a presentation may look quite good, or it may not.

If you don't feel confident in your ability to pick purely decorative illustrations, it may be safer to stick to informational illustrations, which is to say illustrations whose primary purpose is to convey information.

Informational illustrations can be extremely valuable in visual business communication. Some of the best examples of informational illustrations are maps, infographics, and 3D renderings.

For example, for a brochure produced by a car company, it might be informative to show a map of dealership locations, an infographic detailing the car-buying process, and a 3D rendering of upcoming car models.

Using maps to communicate location information is one of the best use-cases for using illustrations in business communications. Maps can be simplistic, or highly detailed; can show the entire globe, or only a tiny region; and can have any type of information layered on top of them, often in the form of labels or icons.

Using infographics used to be quite difficult, as to create them you used to need artistic skill as well as knowledge of how to use sophisticated illustration programs such as Adobe Illustrator. Today, however, there are several websites that allow you to generate your own infographics from templates, with those templates covering a wide array of layouts and styles suitable for communicating a wide array of information.

Using 3D renderings as illustrations requires that they be non-photorealistic - meaning, they are not intended to look like a photo - an effect typically accomplished by reducing the number of colors used. Note that using 3D renderings that are photorealistic falls under the category of using photos in visual communication.

Assuming you have chosen to use informational illustrations, your next choice is whether your illustrations should be whimsical or serious.

Whimsy can be thought of existing on a spectrum, with one end being humorous cartoons, and the other end being serious artwork. For professional documents, it's usually best to keep your illustrations more towards the serious artwork end of the spectrum, as it's quite easy to accidentally cause offense with humor.

Still, in many cases, business documents can be dry, dull, and all too often boring; and adding a bit of whimsy - but not too much - can lift the mood of the document, making it less intimidating than if all of the illustrations were serious.

For example, let's say you were making a document informing employees that they were to return to the office after having worked remotely for some period of time, and you wanted to include an illustration of someone walking into work. You could use a fairly serious illustration with a person marching into the office in the style of a pedestrian crossing sign, or you could have someone skipping into work, surrounded by flowers and forest animals, throwing their hands up in celebration. Both communicate the same idea, but the one with a bit of whimsy lightens the mood of the document, making what might be a bitter pill for some potentially easier to swallow.

Assuming you have chosen to use informational illustrations with a touch of tasteful whimsy, your last choice is whether to use a single artistic style throughout your document, or to mix different styles.

If you plan on drawing the illustrations yourself - a task requiring quite a bit of artistic skill - then you will have full control over the style of your drawings, and can choose to mix and match them however you like - after all, you are the artist in total control of your artwork.

If you do not plan on drawing the illustrations yourself, you will need to obtain permission to use someone else's artwork. Fortunately, reputable stock art sites exist that will grant you a license to use someone else's illustration, which can either be a free license, or a paid license.

It is important to remember that illustrations are pieces of art that you are being given permission to use, and you should always be aware of the terms under which you are using an illustration so that you do not violate the original artist's copyright.

When searching for stock illustrations, you might notice that illustrations done by the same artist often share a similar artistic style, such that each of their illustrations have common characteristics such as similar shapes, colors, characters, and compositions. Different artists may also share a similar artistic style, in which case these illustrations from different artists might be mixed-and-matched but still have the same artistic style.

When selecting illustrations, a good rule of thumb is to use the same artistic style for groups of illustrations that share the same category.

For example, if you are creating a document with illustrations of people, you should use the same artistic style anytime you are representing people, such that you would not have an illustration of people in one part of your document that is a black-and-white line drawing, and in another part of your document represent people in a vibrant 3D rendering. If you would like to use black-and-white line drawings to represent people, you should use that style consistently, to give your document or presentation a sense of stylistic cohesion.

Note that using different artistic styles of illustrations for different categories of content can be quite attractive and still maintain stylistic cohesion, such as using a certain style for maps, a certain style for people, and a certain style for icons. The key is to make sure that all of the illustrations you choose have some characteristic in common, such as sharing a common color palette.

Illustrations can and should provide more than just visual appeal, they should also help communicate important information in a way that is clear and professional - and perhaps also with the occasional touch of tasteful whimsy.